AtDTDA (16) 434 +

[Michael Lee Bailey]

25 WORDS ON RECURRING THEMES IN PYNCHON

Traditions' genesis: in Chums of Chance, Navy men, Weissman and his
minions, et al.  Preterition and election.  Murphy's Law and Goedel's
Theorem. Whole Sick Crews.



On Thu, 2007-08-30 at 06:43 -0700, Mark Kohut wrote:
> YES!!    Great associational finds.............
>  
> Pynchon cross alludes.........his tropes and metaphors change but stay
> the same.......Yes?
>  
> All: 25 word essay on the above.
>  
> I will have more to say on this after I read the papers turned
> in........
>  
> Mark
> 
> dmugmon at comcast.net wrote:
>          
>         >P 434 Special Desert Detail:   Desert = What Associations?
>         Doesn't TRP do some rifiing
>         >on deserts in GR?..... 
>         >"the high-desert traces of an ancient European order" 436 in
>         GR...but there is more I can't find...anyone, >anyone?
>          
>         Just tryin’ to help -
>          
>         The desert in GR?  I think of the ride of Tchitcherine and
>         Qulan, particularly their meeting with the Kazakh singer.
>         Fermented mare’s milk has everyone ‘lit up’!  The aqyn sings
>         of Kirghiz Light.
>          
>         ...In the place where words are unknown,
>         And eyes shine like candles at night,
>         And the face of God is a presence
>         Behind the mask of the sky-
>         As the tall black rock in the desert,
>         In the time of the final days.
>          
>         If the place were not so distant,
>         If words were known and spoken,
>         Then the God might be a gold ikon,
>         Or a page in a paper book.
>         But It comes as the Kirghiz Light-
>         There is no other way to know It….
>          
>         …For I tell you what I have seen It
>         In a place which is older than darkness,
>         Where even Allah cannot reach.
>         As you see, my beard is an ice-field,
>         I walk with a stick to support me,
>         But this light must change us to children….
>         (GR, p 358) 
>          
>         Gaspereaux on locating Shambhala -
>         “I feel the difficulty may lie here,” directing their
>         attention to the center of the display, where, visible only at
>         intervals, stood a mountain peak, blinding white, seeming lit
>         from within, light pouring from it, bursting continually,
>         illuminating transient clouds and even the empty sky….
>         “Thought at first to be Mount Kailash in Tibet,” said
>         Gaspereaux,”a destination for Hindu Pilgrims for whom it is
>         the paradise of Shiva, their most holy spot, as well as the
>         traditional starting point for seekers of Shambhala….
>         (ATD, p 437)
>          
>         Far away to the north, a white mountaintop winks in the last
>         sunlight.  …Tchitcherine will reach the Kirghiz Light, but not
>         his birth.  He is no aqyn, and his heart will never be ready.
>         …He will see it just before dawn.  He will spend 12 hours
>         then, face up on the desert, a prehistoric city greater than
>         Babylon lying in stifled mineral sleep a kilometer below his
>         back…
>         (GR, p 359)
>          
>         Shambhala?
>          
>          
>          
>          
>          
>          
>         
> 
> 
> 
> 
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